December 2016

Thanks to our Events Coordinator, Josiah Argo, the University of Iowa YAL chapter won second place at this past summer's YALCON activism event contest within our region. We planned on doing a chapter bonding event with our winnings and decided the end of the semester was the perfect time to do this. We rented out a room at our main library and had a showing of the Snowden movie, ordered some food, and gave our members a much needed study break. This sparked great conversation about government oversight, and our civil liberties.

This event would have never been possible if we hadn't tried our best during the YALCON regional break out sessions. I would encourage all chapters to go to YALCON together, and participate in all of the events!

At Saint Joseph’s University, we launched the event, “Your Life Your Right”. We decided it was a great event to start before finals week in order to get students thinking about their rights to defend themselves. We set up shop right outside one of the main buildings on campus. As students left classes, we tried engaging them to take an interest in what our chapter was trying to advocate. We had a great time participating and even the students that passed by got to experience what our club is about.

When engaging with nearby students, they immediately began to understand why it is important to have the right to defend yourself. We handed out gator-skin balls and watched all the contestants have fun, but also learn about a great cause at the same time. During our activism event, we had our clipboard in hand ready for anyone interested in the YAL chapter at SJU. We had a few signups, but were successful in getting the word out there about this vital topic.

Last week on December 7, the weather was finally nice enough to bring the Free Speech Ball to Frostburg State University. Many students and even some professors asked what I was doing rolling a giant beach ball around campus. I explained to them that it was for everyone to exercise their right to free speech on a campus that sometimes puts limits on where you can exercise this right. Almost every student I approached was willing to participate, and they loved the idea behind it. They wrote messages of encouragement as finals week approaches, support for the Black Lives Matter movement, support for Donald Trump, and even a Soundcloud link!

This event really caught students' attention, and I was also able to talk to them about the Young Americans for Liberty chapter forming at FSU. This is something that I definitely think we could do again in the spring once it gets warmer.

Students at LDS Business College in Salt Lake City gathered for the last time in the semester to talk about a sacred right: the right of self defense. Students of many view points came to discuss our right to bear arms, and the demonstration did not disappoint.

After we introduced Young Americans for Liberty and what we do, we asked them about the Second Amendment. Some of them brought up gun control (both negatively and positively). Some of them argued for gun free zones, some against. After a little discussion, we decided to put it to the test.

Recently, Auburn YAL had the pleasure of hosting a meeting featuring Brian Ogstad. Mr. Ogstad was kind enough to join us on Thursday, November 8th to deliver his presentation "Capitalism is the Only Option", touting the merits of free-market Capitalism as compared to other economic systems.

In addition to making excellent points and providing insight into the mechanisms behind a free-market system, Brian was also quite the charismatic speaker, keeping the whole chapter entertained and intrigued throughout his presentation. He was also gracious enough to bring along copies of his book, "Man, State, and Liberty" to share with us. We at the Auburn YAL chapter would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Mr. Ogstad for his delightful presentation!

If you'd like to learn more about Brian Ogstad or purchase a copy of "Man, State, and Liberty", you can check out his website at http://www.brianogstad.com/

On Thursday, December 1, the St. John's University YAL Chapter hosted 'Your Life Your Right.' This was our Chapter's second event of the year, the first being our fall recruitment drive. The club's officers and I set up the event's poster and materials during common hour, in a high traffic area. Almost immediately, the poster and materials caught the attention of a few students and we were able to talk about YAL, its mission, the event, and recruit them. Since we were not officially recognized at the time of the event, we could not set up a table, but instead we used an empty desk. We were able to distribute many materials and fill up a couple of pages of sign up sheets.

We held a successful follow up meeting after the event with our new prospective members. The SJU YAL Chapter still has a couple of hurdles to get by before we are official, but so far we have become a powerful voice for Liberty on campus through our activism events and recruitment drives.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: Clipboarding. Everyone knows what it is, nobody wants to do it. I’m here to tell you it’s not all that bad. Not only is it an effective way to recruit members and spread the message, clipboarding is also pretty darn enjoyable once you get the hang of it. There is a learning curve associated with clipboarding, but it only takes around an hour to train yourself into a clipboarding champion! I’m a big believer that clipboarding can be even more effective than tabling because it allows you to be mobile and thus speak to more people per hour. There’s also an added bonus of avoiding all of your school’s bureaucratic hoops associated with securing a picnic table. I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with the clipboard, and I’d like to share some tips to make your clipboarding experience as efficient and gratifying as possible:

1. Look good, feel good, play good: As comfy as those sweats are in your closet, students are more amenable to talking to strangers when they are dressed nicely. Make sure you look your best before walking out the door and you’ll boost your chances of success before the game even begins. It also will do wonders for your confidence, and nothing spreads liberty quicker than a confident message.

Even as a new chapter that has yet to receive school recognition, YAL at CSU San Marcos decided to squeeze a Your Life, Your Right activism event in right before finals week. It was just my treasurer and me, but we really enjoyed ourselves, gained some tabling experience, and met some influential people who I believe will assist in the proliferation of our chapter.

At the end of the day, we only received ten sign-ups. However, I believe that this small list will yield more new members than our Free Speech Ball event did earlier this semester. During said event, we received about sixty sign-ups. Zero of those people ended up joining the chapter. They all loved free speech, but most didn't agree with some of our other ideologies (i.e. gun control). Additionally, the event was so popular that I didn't have as much time to connect and establish rapport with most of the prospects. But today was different. I had great conversations with those who signed up, and they really seemed to care about the necessity of the second amendment.

Today YAL at CSU Stanislaus held it's first meeting just a couple of days after it's first tabling event. At the meeting, we were able to finally become an active chapter.

At the tabling a couple of days ago on Wednesday, we set our table up where it was visible and attracted a decent amount of interest. Though we were able to get some people interested in the chapter, the meeting itself was actually fairly small. Despite this, however, we are excited to get to work in promoting the ideas of liberty on our campus. With active status now obtained, our next goal is to obtain recognition by the school. That is priority #1 for now. We will be meeting next week to speak some more, and are looking forward to what the future holds for us.

Around a month and a half ago, I was told by my regional director from YAL about an amazing opportunity to host a debate on campus sponsored by the Cato Institute with two credible debaters, Alex Nowrasteh who is a Cato Institute Immigration Analyst, and Mark Krikorian who is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.